Boy George Uses AI to Rerecord 'Karma Chameleon'
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- Culture Club rerecorded "Karma Chameleon" using AI to replicate the 1983 vocal, releasing it on vinyl in the song's referenced red, gold, and green alongside reimagined cover art more than 40 years after the original.
- Artist Included, co-founded by manager Paul Kemsley and entertainment attorney Jeremy Rosen with Boy George as creative director, is structured so artists receive the lion's share of revenue, and plans to rerecord Boy George's and Culture Club's entire back catalogs in roughly two weeks.
- The project was prompted by a Virgin Voyages sync deal with Richard Branson worth approximately $4 million — of which $2 million went to master rights holders while Boy George received only an appearance fee, having never owned the masters to his biggest hit.
- The AI was trained on archival demos preserved for decades by original producer Steve Levine; only the vocal is AI-assisted, with new instrumentation recorded by guitarist Roy Hay, bassist Mikey Craig, and session musicians, and additional production by Levine.
- Kemsley said the first AI iteration made Boy George sound like "Pinky and Perky, two pigs on helium in a cartoon"; it took 18 months to refine the technology, and Boy George now says he prefers the AI version.
- The rerecord bypasses the need for former drummer Jon Moss's approval of the original master, though Moss will continue receiving publishing income as a four-way credited songwriter; the next track queued is "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me."
Why it matters: By creating a new AI-assisted master that Boy George controls, the project effectively circumvents his decades-long exclusion from "Karma Chameleon" revenue and sidesteps the approval of former drummer Jon Moss — a template Kemsley says Artist Included is already pitching to unnamed Eighties and Nineties artists whose masters are locked at major labels.
